The Lifelong Elixir

Chapter One

In the far south of Kattai, in the loft of a timber workshed on a yenusha farm, Xueru lay prone alongside two policemen, silently watching over the edge. The building was rudimentary, with gaps between many of the slats.

Below on the floor, the farm’s owner stood with another man, a courier, doing up packages of purple yenusha flowers in brown paper and string. Yenusha was one of Kattai’s main exports, its harvesting and distribution carefully managed because of its value and power. These two packages together must weigh more than ten pounds.

Soon after, at the door of the shed, Xueru heard the courier putting the packages in the saddlebags of his horse. Then the sound of him mounting the horse.

Through a hole in the wall of the loft, Xueru gave the signal to a policeman in ordinary clothes idling with his horse by the nearest fence of the farm. The policeman mounted his horse as well. He would follow the courier to his destination, to see who received the packages.

While they rode away, the farmer made notes in what appeared to be an account book on his workbench. At his back, Xueru jumped lightly to the ground. The farmer turned sharply at the sound of the policemen coming down the ladder from the loft. But Xueru was already moving her hands. Rope appeared and bound the farmer’s wrists. He tried to run, so Xueru put more rope around his ankles and tightened it until he toppled over. He shouted then, face to the ground.

The two policemen picked him up and held him while Xueru leafed through the account book. She turned to the farmer. “This is not the account book you show to the Yenusha Authority is it?”

The farmer was sullen. “I’m not telling you anything.”

“I think you will. Smuggling yenusha in the quantities you have been doing carries the death penalty. I think you will tell us what we want to know if you can choose imprisonment instead.”

The farmer paled at the words death penalty. He said, “She forced me to do it. She’s a witch. I ship it to a witch in Albele. Her name is Brillante.”

Xueru might have scoffed at the word witch, but as it happened, she knew the name. She had heard it the previous year. Brillante was the name of the witch who had turned Duchess Sybilla of Sorra into a giant rat, and that was a changing curse of considerable power.

“Maybe you won’t believe me but it’s true,” the farmer pressed on. “She forced me. She threatened my family—my wife and sons.”

“Actually, I do believe you,” Xueru said. One of the policemen raised his brows. “I know of Brillante. But who else do you smuggle yenusha to? How many couriers do you use? And what are their names?”

“I swear it’s only Brillante. With only the one courier. She’s in Marlesborough, Albele, and he travels all the way there and back every three months. And that’s all I know, I swear it.”

“What does she do with the yenusha?”

“I don’t know! The courier says she makes some potion. I don’t know what. I wouldn’t ask—I don’t want to know.”

“Then I will tell you what I have discovered, precisely because you don’t want to know. Smuggled yenusha has been making it’s way into a potion called Lifelong Elixir. It is marketed as prolonging youth, and therefore life. In fact, it is deadly. The quantity of yenusha in it is at such a level as to be harmful, and there are other toxic ingredients. Does this make you proud of what you have done?”

“I told you,” the farmer muttered, “she forced me. And we farmers must feed and clothe our families.”

“Ah. So you did do it for the money?”

“I wouldn’t have—I wouldn’t. But she forced me. And since she offered the money too …”

“You took it. Without caring who was harmed.” Xueru removed her stern gaze from his face and moved her hands, dispelling the rope from his ankles. To the policemen she said, “Take him away. Get him to Binanso. You know where he must be imprisoned.”

“Yes, my lady,” one policeman said. They pulled the farmer away with them.

Xueru took the incriminating account book and followed them out.

* * *

Xueru spent most of her time nowadays in Onassa with her new husband Marios Rondou, Prince of Aktios. She had come from there to facilitate this investigation for her mother. From the farm in the far south she went to Binanso to ensure the incarceration of the yenusha farmer, and to report to her mother. She guessed this would not be the end of her involvement.

The Empress her mother had asked Louis Perrault as well as Xueru to appear before her in the audience hall of the palace. The room was built of timber, with a coffered ceiling, fretwork windows on three sides and great pillars supporting the ceiling all painted black. Enormous black tiles covered the floor. A canopy of yellow silk hung over the throne.

The Empress said, “And this witch is in Marlesborough?”

“Yes, mother,” Xueru replied. She was glad if she was to have Louis’s help in Albele. Kattans were not always welcome on the mainland.

The Empress tapped her lips with one finger. “We must stop the making of this evil potion. And if it is really a witch receiving the yenusha, this smuggler is the best lead we have. It means, Xueru, I must ask you to go and investigate, but I will also ask through diplomatic channels for the local police in Marlesborough to assist you.”

“Yes, mother.”

“Mr Perrault, I would ask you to go also, to support Xueru. You speak Albelian well. You look … right, if you will forgive me. And you have experience, as Xueru does, with such dangerous people and circumstances. Are you willing to go?”

“Yes, imperial majesty. I am always willing to help Xueru, as she has helped me in the past.”

The Empress nodded. “Thank you. I understand you will need to talk with Mr Yann before you leave. But you two should travel separately in any case. And we should conceal your true purposes for going—investigating our smuggled yenusha in another country. Xueru, you may say to any who ask, you are making a diplomatic and sightseeing visit. Mr Perrault, you could use jewellery sales as a cover for your involvement.”

“Yes, majesty,” Louis said.

Xueru bowed her assent.

* * *

A month later, in late April, Xueru arrived in Marlesborough. The first thing she had to do was perform a round of society visits, calling on noted members of the aristocracy and the parliament. She attended the theatre and the ballet, and numbers of dances and balls. She did not meet the King, who had gone mad some years before.

His eldest son, now middle-aged, ruled as Regent, and Xueru did meet with him early on, the morning of the day after her arrival. He was affable, dressed and groomed to the height of fashion, and rather fat. His wife Princess Alika, who had come from abroad, was dark-skinned and superb. The room they met in was a state room of the palace with walls papered in olive green, with delicate white plaster mouldings and gilding on the ceiling, door and windows. The couch and chairs in which they sat were neo-classical in style and covered in darker green silk.

“Terrible business with this smuggling, what?” the Prince Regent said to open the conversation.

Albelian idiom was difficult sometimes for Xueru to decipher. “We intend to stop it in its tracks if we can, your highness, just as we are endeavouring to halt all smuggling of yenusha in Kattai itself.”

The Prince ran a hand through his impeccable hair and stretching out his legs, crossed them before him at the ankles. The movement left him almost lying flat in his chair. “Good, good. Yenusha’s a wonderful plant, used properly. Took it for my gout, the last bad attack I had. Best thing I’ve tried so far for the pain and swelling.” He stopped as Princess Alike cleared her throat expressively. “But you don’t want to hear about my ills. Tell me, how d’you plan to catch whoever’s doing it.”

The chairs were very firm. Xueru shifted discreetly. “We have a man following the courier of a smuggled shipment of yenusha. We were informed it would come to Marlesborough. We should see who receives the shipment from the courier. Then we will be able to follow them to see what they are doing with the substance, and if they are making the potion as we believe. Since your local police have agreed to help me, we should be able to apprehend the receiver swiftly.”

“And what potion is this?”

“I discovered it in Kattai. It is a potion called Lifelong Elixir. The person or the people who make and sell it claim it allows the consumer to stay young and fit for far longer than the term of a natural life. In fact, it has dangerous side effects likely to make a person mentally and physically weak. We believe those who buy it either are not aware of the side effects, or they wish to stay looking young even at the cost of their internal health.”

“Shocking,” said the Prince. His gaze had shifted from Xueru to Princess Alika. He rubbed the side of his nose thoughtfully. Then he looked back to Xueru. “Well, I wish you well in your endeavour. I will watch with interest what you uncover. But¾” He pushed himself upright and backwards into the chair, tucking his feet beneath. “But you must not be at all work, no play, while you are with us. I’m holding a ball tonight, in honour of the arrival for a short visit of the Crown Princess Rosalya of Illyrus. And a little bird informed me you are acquainted with the lady. May I hope you will join the party of those attending? I feel you would turn heads with your … exotic appearance.”

Privately, Xueru wondered who invited guests to a ball on the grounds that they might be a novelty. At the same time, she wondered how a little bird had told the Prince Regent Xueru knew Rosalya of Illyrus without mentioning the circumstances that would demonstrate Xueru loathed the lady. Or perhaps the Prince Regent had simply forgotten details he considered tiresome. Xueru said, “I should be honoured, your highness. Thank you.”

Their meeting ended there, and Xueru went to the townhouse she had taken in the city to consider what in her wardrobe she should wear that would draw least attention to herself at a ball attended by Albelian royalty.

She decided there was nothing. All her clothes were Kattan in style, the distinctive Kattan robes with wide sash belts. So Xueru took two hours from her day to go shopping. She shopped in the high street of Marlesborough, making swift decisions over cuts, colours, sleeves, bonnets and ribbons. When she was done, she was equipped with all the dresses, coats bonnets and accessories of a fine Albelian woman which would allow her to fit in at least a little in this very fashion-conscious society.

After lunch, Xueru called on the policemen who were assisting with her case, to make herself known to them. The captain assigned to work with her made no pretence at being fashionable in his dark blue uniform decorated with gilt buttons. But he was efficient, and he handled his men a little as though they were his sons.

Later that day, once evening and darkness fell, the Kattan policeman who had followed the courier with the yenusha all the way north called on Xueru at her townhouse. Surreptitiously, he knocked on the back door. Xueru’s maid let him in and ushered him to Xueru in the parlour.

He began, “My lady, I followed the courier to a public house. He carried the packages inside and went to a table. I took a table opposite and watched and waited. Soon, an old lady came in. She went straight to the same table as the courier, and he gave her the packages. They had a drink together but did not talk much. Before long, the courier left and I stayed watching the old lady. She continued drinking for about an hour and a half. At last she left, and I followed. But outside the public house, I am afraid—I am sorry my lady—I lost her. One moment she was in front of me, and the next she seemed simply to have vanished. I don’t know how I missed her.”

Xueru was frustrated. But it wasn’t this man’s fault. “We learned in Kattai, she is a witch. She may have a spell or invisibility cloak for all we know. Or maybe she climbs walls like a spider. What did she look like?”

“She was dressed all in black, as though for mourning. Her face was round and she had a low forehead, a scooped nose, small eyes and a prominent chin. I could not see her hair for the scarf she was wearing, but she was certainly elderly—I would guess about sixty.”

Xueru considered. “All right. Good work, thank you. I think you should now return to your post in Kattai. Wait¾” She thought harder. “You say this woman sat drinking for some time after the courier left her?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Then perhaps it is her local public house that she visits regularly. I will ask Police Captain Meredith to put a watch on the place to see if Brillante returns.”

“That is clever, my lady.” The policeman smiled. “I will say she looked the type, whether she has magical powers or not.”

After dinner, Xueru attended the Prince Regent’s ball, held at his personal palace.

Two rooms had been set aside for dancing—the white and gilt ballroom and an anteroom. The fine wooden floors of both had been decorated with chalk drawings all of legendary beings, from unicorns to gods, separated by floral designs. An orchestra took up one corner of the ballroom, its melodies diffusing through both rooms.

Guests, dressed in their finest, even to enormous feathers in their hair that sometimes drooped, did not dance before the royal couple appeared with their honoured guest. People used the time beforehand to promenade through the palace’s public rooms, wondering at their splendour. When Xueru walked past, some of them paused to gaze at her foreign face, often with an equal amount of wonder.

The Prince Regent and Princess Alika entered after ten o’clock with Rosalya the former rusalka beside them. Xueru sank back into a corner, having no desire to be noticed by the woman who a year and a half before had killed and injured her friends. At least, having married Crown Prince Igor, she was now presumably mortal and had no powers with water as she had once done.

Standing at the far end of the ballroom, the Prince Regent introduced the imperial guest. “Rosalya the Fair, Crown Princess of Illyrus,” he announced smiling. “Welcome to our humble country. I hope you enjoy your stay with us and make new friendships to carry back with you to Illyrus and your imperial husband.”

Rosalya gave the ravishing smile that Xueru remembered from her days as a peasant living by a lake in rural Illyrus. “Thank you, your highness. I look forward to it. But surely, now, we must all begin to dance.” She looked joyous at the prospect, dressed in a pale pink silk gown embroidered in silver thread with something that was probably flowers. Her hair was done up with a pink ostrich feather and jewels. She appeared very much as though she had fallen on her feet—after killing Xueru’s friend Yann who had only ever tried to help her.

The dancing began.

Brought up with royalty, Xueru knew all the dances she needed to know. She found few men wished to dance with her, however, presumably because of her Kattan face. That did not bother her at this ball. It meant she was less likely to come upon Rosalya, who was dancing with gusto with every man she could.

The dancing broke up for supper at about one o’clock in the morning. Xueru made sure to sit far down the table, away from the royalty at the head, and sipped thankfully on tea and coffee to help her stay awake. Supper ended with several toasts, to the King and to the imperial guest. The orchestra played a well-known Illyrusian march. Then the company returned to dancing or simply walking about talking. Several hours later, the party finally began to break up.

Xueru was glad. She was never fond of crowds, let alone ones that held an enemy. She was one of the first to leave the party.